The Ohio Department of Health started off the New Year on the right foot by launching a consumer-friendly website allowing people to compare quality (and eventually pricing) data of Ohio hospitals. The ODH’s new Ohio Hospital Compare website went live January 1.

While only four pediatric measures are included in this first go-round, significantly more are planned for late 2010 and 2011. The website already allows consumers to compare hospitals that treat adults on more than 100 quality measures, including infection rates and how often a hospital performs certain procedures.

Cincinnati Children’s received “perfect” scores on the pediatric measures, but my point isn’t to brag about our results (although I guess I just did). Rather, it is to point out that public release of information allowing comparison of hospital-to-hospital data has been spotty. Release of this additional data is overdue.

We’ve long believed that transparency raises the bar for healthcare performance. Take a look and judge for yourself: